I applaud Gary Dickson”s March 13 editorial on the addiction war asking if we as a nation have the strength and determination to make a change. A much heard line during prohibition was that the politicians have their laws and we have our booze. Today the politicians have their drug laws, with imperial armies waging a holy war against each and every “illicit” drug user, with budgets that could choke Bill Gates, with results that are a pyrrhic victory for us all, with ever-increasing drugs on the streets.
In 1914 the Harrison Act converted drug addicts from what for centuries were at worse a misfortune and embarrassment into a disaster; with the main disastrous effects on mind, body, and society coming from our laws and policies. Prohibition, as we found in 1920-1933 with alcohol doesn”t work, even with all the fevered prayers of the Woman”s Christian Temperance Union. Laws without complainants not only fail, but in the process of failing, do more harm than good.
Our drug policy debate is based on speculation and fear-mongering as with Harry Anslinger”s “Assassin of Youth” designation of marijuana. “The sprawled body of a young girl lay crushed on the sidewalk the other day after a plunge from the fifth story?” Our fear of illicit drugs (as opposed to highly addictive licit drugs like cigarettes) is so great that even scientific studies of them are banned or tightly controlled; even though most every study conducted shows little or no harmful effects from their use ? except for the secondary effects of being illegal. After extensive review of the literature, what surprises most investigators is that the actual deleterious effects of addiction on the addict, and on society, which should be clearly understood, are very difficult even to locate.
Baruch Spinoza (1632-1677) wrote “[a]ll laws which can be violated without doing any one an injury are laughed at. Nay, so far are they from doing anything to control the desires and passions of men that, on the contrary, they direct and incite men”s thoughts the more toward those very objects; for we always strive toward what is forbidden and desire the things we are not allowed to have. And men of leisure are never deficient in the ingenuity needed to enable them to outwit laws framed to regulate things which cannot be entirely forbidden ? He who tries to determine everything by law will foment crime rather than lessen it.”
Greg Blinn
Kelseyville
A long time ago, someone said those who fail to heed the lessons of history are doomed to repeat them.
Apparently, Ms. Parkhill does not believe that.
Not long ago, Hawaii adopted a universal, single payer health care scheme. within two years it was abandoned due to skyrocketing costs.
during Mr. Romney”s tenure as Governor of Mass., that state adopted a universal health care program. That program”s steadily increasing cost has driven the government to the brink of bankruptcy.
Iceland has cradle-to-grave Social Security including universal health care. They also have an individual tax rate in excess of 75 percent. According to the latest reports, that Country”s economy is teetering on the edge of bankruptcy.
canada as well as several countries in Europe have installed the same socialist system and are finding the costs unsustainable.
Yet, with all this evidence in hand, Ms. Parkhill wants the U.S., or at least California, already deeply in debt, to leap into the same socialist morass.
I guess she just assumes that all those other governments must have done it wrong and it will work just fine if she and her progressive friends can just be allowed to take control and do it the right way. Apparently, the 85 percent of Americans who do not want socialist run health care just don”t understand.
Well, we all work until June every year to support Government at all levels. Maybe it won”t hurt too much if we extend that out to September or October. At least we can still have enough left to provide a decent Christmas for our families.
Would that work for you, Ms. Parkhill?
Bob Knutson
Kelseyville
278-0515
